


promises

by mystifi_ed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Marauders, Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Marauders' Era, One Shot, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, Short One Shot, War time, established JIly, it's also old as heck but have it anyway, technically only remus and a little of lily and james tho, the others are just mentioned, this is sad yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 11:25:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13317087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystifi_ed/pseuds/mystifi_ed
Summary: tell me about the marauders (and lily) having the talk.





	promises

**Author's Note:**

> this is some. bloody sad shit yall....i made myself sad just by writing this. it's also old and short but here you go anyway. hope yall enjoy. lower-case is intentional bc that's just how i type sorry

 

_tell me about the marauders (and lily) having the talk._

 

tell me about five kids _(god, they were still kids)_ huddled together on the floor of a shitty apartment they all shared.

 

tell me about the sombre mood, the heavy silence-- no one said a word about what they were going to talk about, but they knew anyway.

 

tell me about lily, the first to speak. tell me about james, gripping her hand tightly. unwilling, but he knew this was necessary, knew that all of them had to work through this together to make the Order work. to ensure that they would know what to do when the time rolled around.

 

tell me about sirius, eyes screwed shut. tell me about remus, anxious and dreading the conversation. tell me about peter, teeth digging into his bottom lip.

 

_“promise me-- promise all of us that no matter what. if it comes down to saving innocents or saving one of us, we’ll always put civilians first. always. you-- you can come back for any one of us afterwards. after all the civilians have been evacuated.”_

 

tell me about how it was lily who uttered these words, lily who made sure the conversation would take place-- but sirius who had thought far enough ahead, who had had the foresight to know that these types of either-or situations were going to happen whether they liked it or not, wanted it or not.

 

tell me about how james gripped lily’s hand still tighter at the tremble in her voice _(trembling but still ploughing on)_ ; how remus’ jaw clenched tighter and tighter with every word and sirius paling by the second, peter with his chin on his knees and his hands shaking as he leaned against remus.

 

tell me about how when the night came, no one went to bed with dry eyes, all huddled together with blankets and pillows by the gentle, soothing warmth of the fireplace.

 

* * *

 

tell me about how remus had to grit his teeth, eyes glassy as he apparated away with the only survivors of the death eater attack on a muggle-born house-- the only thing whirling around his mind being _lily lily lily merlin lily’s still trapped_ he’d never forgive himself if lily died on his watch-- never, even if james did _(which he would. james would,_ remus knew, _oh god but he shouldn’t)._

 

there are cuts and gashes littering his arms and face and he’s not sure if he’s imagining the throbbing in his left leg but the only thing clouding his mind is lily, trapped beneath the collapsed building. lily, fiery hair plastered to her sheet white face lily with the lower half of her body crushed under debris lily-- lily with her wan face looking up tiredly at him grinning weakly saying _“see? still in one piece, eh?”_ and that’s the last thing she said to him before telling him to take the survivors and _go._

 

remus blanks. he’s pretty much moving on autopilot so as not to completely lose his mind. he can almost feel his heart crack when they finally find lily’s wand, only to see it snapped in half, hanging by a thread. he’s still staring numbly at the wand in his grasp when he hears the unmistakable _crack_ of apparition and the _thud thud thud_ of footfalls and debris giving way and--

 

_“remus, merlin’s beard remus you’re alive thank fuck you’re alive mate i-- … where’s lils?”_

 

remus looks up into the dark eyes of one james potter.

 

 _“she-- they-- they took-- under the debris but-- apparated away with the survivors and then-- she’s gone and they_ took her _.”_

 

he doesn’t feel himself saying it. but he must have, because he can hear the words ripping themselves into existence and then now it’s james who’s whitening by the second, eyes widening behind those gold-rimmed frames as he registers what those words mean, what they must mean, because if lily is gone and they took her and _she’s not dead not yet she’s not_ then it can only mean one thing: they took her for information.

 

more specifically, they took her to torture the information out of her.

 

and anyone who’s ever even exchanged a word with lily potter nee evans knows her fierce loyalty and her love for her friends and her passion to protect and her indignance at the sheer wrongness of magical discrimination which means that she’d never, even for a fleeting second, consider giving up as a viable option. never offer information on the Order, on Dumbledore, on Moody, that would save her life and spare her pain and agony but bring down everything she’d spent her life working for. she would never.

 

which, finally, means that if lily doesn’t crack under the cruciatus curse (and she won’t)... her mind might, first.

 

 

 


End file.
